Jimrat Push Boundaries With New Visual Album 'Instant'

04-14-2025

(WBR) "Instant paints a picture of struggle. Struggle with nature, with bodies, with instruments..." Sam Dovrin, lead singer of Boston-based experimental avant-shoegaze rock band Jimrat, explains of their epic 11-track visual album, Instant, out now.

"The desolation of winter, the mystery of the woods, the desire of the figures we see amongst the trees." Instant's visual component tells the story of a man walking into these woods where a cult is performing a ritual, and he gets seduced into joining. The album deals with conflict, push and pull- the dance duet to the track "Come Around" emphasizes the tension between wanting to chase and be chased, of wanting to run away, but also wanting to come in closer. "We want to know more, we want to desire, but we are afraid of the consequences of being vulnerable," Sam concludes.

The grungy, noisy wash that is the genre-bending Instant was recorded entirely live at the bands' residency this past November at Living Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. They posted up for three days, recording their sets and playing with NYC punk bands such as Gun and Le Bang. "The album represents the first moment of jimrat the BAND as opposed to jimrat the recording project. We tried to capture the energy of live shows, while keeping the experimental approach to sound." The record certainly does capture that energy, in its unpredictability, self-assertiveness, and penetrative sound. "We decided to make a whole visual album because we felt that the themes and aesthetics we associated with the music were so specific that we wanted to create a way to capture those elements. Of course, if someone just listens to it they can make their own associations. But the visual album is like our album pinterest board realized," Sam expresses.

The final single before the album release, "home," released March 28th, came with the first taste of the visual album. The music video for "home" is a play on a classic band performance video and a snapshot of what was to come with Instant. It begins simply, but slowly things devolve into strange, vaguely nightmarish imagery. "Home" followed first and second singles "kneel" (released 1/30) and "something" (2/21). In Instant, each song flows into the next seamlessly, and coupled with the visual album, a fleshed out story is being told here. As you delve deeper into the jimrat realm, the album gets darker, culminating in the climax of track 9, "don't." The two final songs are like a "postlude," Sam says. From each instant to the next, jimrat's sound changes and different elements come to the foreground. "Sometimes the sound gets stuck, as in the beginning of 'know me.' Sometimes momentum is gained, as in the beginning of 'come around.' I really want the whole thing to be listened to as one." The push and pull that exists thematically is mirrored sonically.

The first track off Instant, "chorale," trickles in slowly and gradually, like you're wading into the pool that is jimrat. But by the end, you're already in the deep end, the water level rising above your head. It quiets down from its full throttle thrashing before bleeding into the second track, "know me." Which lulls you into a trance of twinkling guitars and crooning vocals, before exploding all over your face in a rebellious cacophony. "A first instant" is feedback and sounds and electricity and feeling, before "try; that's mine," a shimmery, yearning track that peaks and valleys between quiet longing and strong, eruptive emotion. The dark "come around" is rousing as Sam groans, "She gets what she wants, all the time."

The lyrics in Instant deal with a paradox dreamed up by Sam. "Sometimes we say things that we want to be true that are not, while other times we refuse to say truths that we wish were lies. Instant deals with wanting to know someone, to be afraid of knowing someone, wanting to know yourself. The fascination with what it means to know someone, to try, and the pain that can come if you succeed. Also, I think a lot about desire, the pain of desire, of admitting that you want something. But also, the release when you get it- when you no longer need to pretend. There is a lot of pretending in Instant. Pretending we don't know something, that we don't want something. The pain of admitting you tried and failed. Of wanting to try harder, of not knowing how to try."

Jimrat is Josie Arthur (rhythm guitar), E. Benavides (bass), Emma DeLaRosa (lead guitar and synth), Tim Ro (drums), and Sam Dvorin (lead vox/everyone also sings too, though). Having met through the Boston DIY scene around 2020, schoolmates turned into roommates turned into bandmates turned into Jimrat.